


Captain Reynolds Against the Interplanetary Crime League

by Omorka



Series: Eighth Dimension And Beyond [3]
Category: Firefly, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Firefly crew are trying to stay one step ahead of a group of bounty hunters with illegal drones, when they pick up an accidental hitch-hiker and his dimension-hopping Jet Car.  Dr. Banzai helps them keep the ship in the black - but can he keep them out of the hands of those who hunt them for profit?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain Reynolds Against the Interplanetary Crime League

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to SusanMarieR, who did a fantastic [cover image](http://i1151.photobucket.com/albums/o634/susanmaries/SusanMarieR/Fest%20CoverArt/CRAtICLAO3bigcopy_zps02bfcc9b.jpg) for the fic, and the Spouse, Bibulb, who stepped in and did a last minute beta job for me (all remaining errors are solely my own).

The mule’s engine whined and rattled as Zoe took it over a rough patch of ground at much too high a speed. “Any minute now,” she muttered into the microphone at her jawline; the hoverdrone overshot her and curved back to the left.

“Almost there, hang tight,” Mal’s voice shouted reassuringly through the earpiece. “Just had to make a quick detour to shake off one of these remote control things.”

Zoe ducked as Jayne popped up from behind her and fired; the drone on their left sparked and started losing altitude. She pulled hard on the wheel and stomped on the accelerator, heading out onto the salt flat to their right. “Do you know how many there were?” she asked over the wind.

“Looked like about seven or eight, from the first couple of scans,” Kaylee’s voice answered. “Hard to tell with all the interference from the dust cloud, though.”

Jayne watched the drone send up sparks as it hit sandstone, then chanced a glance up into the reddish haze above them before dropping to a crouch behind Zoe again. “At least the heat lightning stopped,” he grumbled. “You sure you can find us in all that?”

“Pretty sure,” Mal answered. “Just stay out in the open.”

“Incoming at six o’clock,” Zoe murmured. “Can you pick them off?”

Jayne peered over the back of the mule. “Can’t see anything except more dust. You sure that’s not just part of the boob?”

“Haboub,” she corrected automatically. “And yeah, about 90% sure. It’s moving in too straight a line to be a dust devil. Heads up!”

Serenity dropped out of the cloud layer above and behind them, shooting ahead and dropping perilously low. Zoe matched speed and spared a look back. “It’d probably be a good idea for you to take care of them before they see the ship,” she commented.

Another drone emerged from the rapidly approaching dust plume. “I see ‘em,” Jayne grunted. “Probably too late on that, but -” Vera barked twice, and the drone spun off wildly.

The hatch started to lower; Zoe coaxed the mule into picking up just a tiny bit more speed. “Easy does it,” she muttered, more to Jayne than to Mal.

“Can’t make out any more of them in the dust,” Jayne said, almost apologetically.

“Just get down,” Zoe ordered, aiming the mule for the flattest spot on the playa. 

Serenity dipped a few more meters; the hatch struck basalt and threw up a shower of sparks. Zoe ducked down and aimed for it as Jayne ducked again, hitting the ramp just as the ship wobbled and started to rise again. The tires skidded on the cargo bay’s floor as she stood on the brakes; the mule screeched to a stop just short of the stairs.

Simon tossed a rope from the walkway. “Nice driving,” he offered.

“Thanks,” Zoe panted as she jumped down. “Get the ramp up; we were followed.”

“But Kaylee wasn’t tracking any more of the drones,” Simon protested, his brow wrinkling.

“Not a drone,” Jayne growled as he heaved a large metal box from the back of the mule. “Ground transport, and headed right for -”

A black vehicle easily twice the size of the mule broke out of the dust storm and shot straight for the ramp. Zoe darted to the control panel as the hatch started to rise, but the vehicle was faster; it made the leap from rock to ramp and then fishtailed wildly as a parachute flared from its back end.

“Out of the way!” Simon shouted, but Jayne and Zoe had already dived, one right and one left. The black truck slammed into the mule, then the stairs, then ricocheted back into the center of the cargo bay before coming to a halt. A slow sizzle of steam trickled from under the dented hood as the hatch clunked into position.

Zoe was the first on her feet. She clambered over an empty cargo container and glanced into the back of the mule before veering around it to the stairs. “Anything broken?” she asked, offering Simon a hand.

He took it gratefully and hauled himself upright. “Not on me,” he huffed. “Jayne?”

“I’m in one piece,” Jayne growled. “Which is more than I can say for this _sha gua_ once I get my mitts on him.”

The intercom buzzed into activity. River’s voice in the background advised, “Crack the egg slowly,” before Mal broke in on her. “Zoe, what’s the situation down there?”

“We’ve picked up a hitchhiker,” she reported. “Large ground vehicle, possibly a small troop transport. All black, with mirrored windows.” She edged around it, eyes scouring it for every reportable detail. “Unconventional engine,” she added. “Kaylee, is the camera system working?”

“Not great,” came the response through the intercom, much tinnier than the feed from the cockpit. “Let me see if I can, whoa, hey, that’s interesting.”

Simon took a few steps back as Jayne slung Vera across his back and unsheathed a wicked-looking knife from his boot. “Interesting how?” the doctor asked, shifting his gaze to the nearly-hidden lens of the security camera. They were still too new-looking to really blend in with the rest of the ship, but they’d come in handy before.

“Well,” Kaylee’s voice answered, “It’s more like a shuttlecraft engine than something you’d normally use on something that wasn’t going to fly. That thing ain’t got wings?”

“Nope,” Zoe answered, circling back to the passenger side. “Just wheels, and three fins on the back.” She paused. “The impact dented the sheet metal but it didn’t crack the windshield.”

“So, tougher than glass,” Kaylee mused.

“Excuse me,” Mal’s voice interrupted, “but there appears to be an intruder on my ship and I’d kind of like to know who he is.”

“Me, too,” Jayne growled. Shifting the knife in his grip, he brought the pommel down hard on the driver’s-side window; it left a dull white mark before bouncing off. “Yeah, okay, not glass.”

Zoe retrieved the mare’s-leg from what was left of the mule and came around to the front, her stance carefully balanced. “If he starts the engine again,” she stated, “move.”

Jayne reached for something his fingers didn’t find. He scowled; the sound of his nails scratching at the paint made Simon wince. “There’s no door handle,” Jayne reported. “There isn’t even a door.”

“Well, that ain’t good design,” Kaylee’s voice protested. “How in the hell are you supposed to get out if it’s on fire?”

As if in response to her question, the driver’s side window shuddered. The vehicle rocked slightly; Zoe and Jayne each took a step back. With a thump, the mirrored panel popped clear of its frame and fell clattering to the floor, revealing a boot of the same dusty black shade as the vehicle itself.

Zoe cocked the shotgun in no great hurry. “Hold it,” she demanded calmly.

The boot withdrew and was replaced by a pair of gloves in the same dull black leather, palms open and out.

Jayne flipped the knife again. “Want me to pry him out of there?” he asked, grinning just a bit too wide at the thought.

Mal’s voice answered before Zoe could. “No, let’s see if he’ll get out of his own accord. But if you see anything, and I mean anything, that looks like it might even be _thinking_ of being a weapon, you feel free to separate him from it. Use as much excessive force as might be necessary.”

“With pleasure,” Jayne answered, shifting his position so that Zoe had a clear line of fire.

The gloves moved to the top of the window frame, and a helmet - still all black, but much shinier than anything they’d seen so far - slid out. The driver of the vehicle hoisted himself up and out until he was sitting on the frame, then flipped backwards - 

Zoe raised the shotgun; Jayne came forward with the knife in hand -

And the driver landed on both feet, hands still out. Slowly, the man clad in black stood from his crouch and raised his hands into the classic gesture of surrender.

Zoe nodded, as if that level of athleticism bored her. “Helmet off,” she commanded. “And keep your hands where we can see them.”

The driver reached under the visor to undo a strap and then lifted the helmet straight up. Black, wavy hair matted with sweat stuck up in all directions around a narrow, well-tanned face with dark eyes and high cheekbones. A red-and-white headband across his forehead seemed to disappear into his damp curls at the back of his head. The driver blinked against the harsh lights of the cargo bay, his eyes darting in all directions. With a glance, he took in Zoe, Jayne, Simon, the mule, and the scattered cargo containers.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry about your truck,” he offered in a soft baritone.

“Name and rank, soldier,” Zoe replied.

“I’m Dr. Buckaroo Banzai,” he explained. “And I’m not actually a soldier; I’m a deputy sheriff, but -”

“For Deertown?” Jayne asked. “ ‘Cause I didn’t think they had but the one sheriff.”

“No, for the state of New Jersey,” Dr. Banzai answered.

Jayne blinked. “What planet is _that_?”

Banzai opened his mouth, then thought better of it. “Where are we now?”

Mal’s voice echoed down from the intercom, “You’re on the _Serenity_ , which happens to be my ship, and I don’t exactly recall you paying for your passage.”

“Ah.” Banzai’s eyes swept the cargo bay again, nervously prying into the nooks and shadows. “Passage from where to where?”

Jayne snorted. “You don’t know what planet you’re leaving? I know I may look stupid, but you can’t be serious.”

“Actually, he is,” River interrupted; she still sounded like she was several feet from the intercom microphone.

Zoe’s mouth became a hard line, and she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. “The delightfully sandy place we’re leaving is Paquin, and we’re heading for Muir to make a drop-off.” She glanced back at the mule and the one box Jayne had managed to unload, adding, “Assuming your entrance didn’t damage the cargo.”

Banzai nodded slowly. “I don’t suppose either of those two is also known as Planet Ten,” he inquired; he looked like he expected a negative answer.

“Not as far as I know,” Zoe answered flatly; she glanced over her shoulder back at Simon for confirmation.

Shaking his head, Simon pointed out, “And you’d need to be more specific - the tenth planet from which sun?”

At that, Buckaroo’s brow furrowed. “There’s more than one?” he blurted.

Jayne broke out into a broad guffaw. “ _Diyu_ , yeah, there’s more than one - where were you educated, doc, that you don’t know that?”

“I already told you,” Buckaroo stated, his voice betraying just a tinge of irritation. “New Jersey.”

“And we don’t know of any planet by that name, either,” Simon reminded him.

Buckaroo sighed. “Look, may I take the safety suit off? Apparently we have a serious miscommunication here.”

Zoe lowered the shotgun but kept both hands on it. “Sure, go ahead,” she agreed.

Banzai tugged the glove from his right hand with his teeth, then pulled the left one off more conventionally and tossed them both back into the driver’s seat. As he reached for the zipper pull of his jumpsuit, Jayne’s knife flashed back into view; very deliberately, Buckaroo tugged down the zipper and shrugged off the top of the flight suit to reveal a lavender oxford shirt soaked through with perspiration and a narrow black necktie.

“Cain’t we get a doc who dresses like a normal person?” Jayne growled in disgust.

Frowning lightly, Buckaroo continued to peel the jumpsuit away from his charcoal slacks. He kicked off the heavy boots, wadded the flight suit around them, and tossed the bundle on top of the gloves. As he reached into the cockpit again, Zoe brought the shotgun back up.

He waved her off. “Relax, it’s okay.” He removed a pair of well-worn cowboy boots from under the seat and dropped them to the floor, easing himself down to tug the left one on.

Zoe was unimpressed. “I’m still waiting for you to explain where New Jersey is,” she reminded him.

“It’s in the United States of America.” Banzai searched their faces for any sign of recognition; only Simon’s gave anything away, and it was disbelief. “On the third planet from the sun.”

“The third planet from the White Sun’s Sihnon,” Zoe stated. “And I don’t think they’d name a city something like that there.”

Banzai shook his head, so sharply that droplets of sweat flew from him. “The Sun’s a yellow star.” He squinted at her. “You’re human, right? Sol, the origin system, third planet, Terra, Earth.”

“You’re from Earth-That-Was?” Simon asked, eyebrows arched.

“Like hell,” Mal’s voice snapped through the speakers.

“Was?” Buckaroo looked like he might be ill. “What did you do to her, then?”

Simon hunted for the camera again. “ _Mei-mei?_ ”

River’s voice was still wan in the speakers. “He’s telling the truth, at least as he understands it.”

“So he’s delusional,” Jayne spat. “Ain’t no one doesn’t know what happened to Earth-That-Was.”

Buckaroo yanked on the second boot. “I’m ready to be enlightened,” he said quietly.

\---

Mal folded his arms and glared at everyone in turn. “I’m getting a little tired of the whole stowaway thing,” he grumbled.

Zoe glanced back at the dining table. Simon was giving their visitor a crash course in recent history from a slightly glitchy datapad; Jayne had stopped actively standing guard and was now playing with his knife and looking bored. “The good news, sir,” she said, “is that the cargo seems to have sustained very little damage, and Dr. Banzai claims he can repair the damage to the mule if we can pick up some scrap metal.”

“I’d say he owes us that at a minimum,” Mal replied, swiping one hand through his hair. “It’s difficult enough to travel out here, now that people are starting to recognize us.”

“The whole ‘being the most wanted criminals in the ‘Verse’ thing isn’t exactly helping,” she pointed out. Suddenly looking uncomfortable, she swung a chair around and sat abruptly.

He shrugged. “Notoriety does seem to mean we get higher-paying jobs. That’s got to count for something.”

“It counts for a slightly higher operating budget, sir.” Zoe’s eyes flicked back to their quasi-prisoner.

Jayne scooted his chair over to join them. “Ain’t like there are any patrols out here,” he argued. “Too busy with the rioting and all, back in the Core.”

“It’s not that there’s none, it’s that there are a lot fewer,” Zoe corrected. “And if we get lazy, we’ll forget there’s a big difference between those two.”

Kaylee stuck her head through the door, grinning. “That’s the most advanced primitive rocket truck I’ve ever seen,” she pronounced as she wiped her hands on her overalls and headed towards Mal’s table.

Dr. Banzai looked up from the datapad. “It’s called the Jet Car,” he said. “And it looks like you have much better materials technology now.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed, dropping into a chair halfway between Banzai and the captain. “I mean, you haven’t even got crystalline baffling on your aluminum flange shielding. And I’d’ve used a ceramic overplating fused to the fuselage for heat shielding - you must have to repaint that thing every time you use it.”

“The paint-on microceramic heat shielding is supposed to be ablative,” Buckaroo pointed out. “But yes, it has to be reapplied after each mission.” He grimaced. “And I hadn’t counted on losing this much of it due to impact rather than re-entry.”

“Re-entry?” Mal’s ears perked up. “I thought you said it couldn’t fly.”

“It can’t,” Kaylee stated. “Nowhere near enough lift generation. There are downdraft generators under the back fins that might allow it to hover for a few minutes, but it can’t gain altitude.”

“Too heavy,” Banzai agreed. “As we replace some of the steel structural elements with composites, we’re hoping to fix that, but that’s several revisions down the road.”

“So whyfore re-entry?” Mal pressed.

Buckaroo raised his head. “Care to answer that? I don’t think they’ll believe me,” he called across the galley.

River slunk into the room from the passageway. “You’re not from around here,” she said vaguely. “Or from around now.”

Zoe scowled. “You’re not seriously suggesting he’s from Earth-That-Was,” she accused.

“It’s more humorous than serious.” River toyed with one of the mugs in the galley, filled it with water, and padded back towards the flight deck. “But - he was, when it was.” She slid the door closed behind her.

Mal stared at Banzai. “So, what, it’s a time machine?”

“Well, no, not where I started,” Buckaroo explained. “I realize this isn’t going to make much sense, but -” he turned towards Kaylee. “Did you inspect the interior?”

“Yeah, and you’ve got some really weird stuff in there,” she admitted. “What’s the blinky thing labeled ‘Overthrust’?”

“That’s the Oscillation Overthruster,” he said, his face becoming more than usually animated. “In my origin time and dimension, it allows the Jet Car and its contents to shift out of phase with normal matter. By moving slightly in the direction of the Eighth Dimension, it can pass through a mountain - or a brick wall.”

“ _Fei hua_ ,” spat Jayne.

“I know, it seems ridiculous, but that’s what it does,” Buckaroo insisted. “However, it turns out that if I start with any _rotational_ motion through the Eighth Dimension, an overall torque, the Jet Car will exit in a different parallel 4-dimensional manifold from the one I started in. It effectively travels from one universe to another. And the behavior of the Oscillation Overthuster is sensitively dependent on the chronospatial constant of each parallel universe. If that constant strays too far from my universe’s value, then the Jet Car travels timewise, rather than spacewise; it acts as a temporal flux capacitor rather than -” He paused, studying their faces. “Do I need to draw a diagram? Would that help?”

Only Kaylee answered. “No, no, I think I get the basic idea,” she said. “So this has happened to you before?”

“Yes,” Banzai answered, “and the variance is sensitive enough that I keep overshooting.” He rubbed his temples with his thumbs, edging the headband upwards slightly. “I’m trying to travel in my present, which according to your doctor here is a significant fraction of a millennium in your past, from Earth to Planet Ten by skipping the space in between. So far I’ve ended up twenty years in the future of a very near parallel, ten years in the past of a more distant parallel, and in the very near future of what is either my own timeline after my assassination or a very close parallel where I died in the mid-1980s.” He sighed. “But those were all on Earth. This is the first time I’ve overshot spatially.”

River’s voice crackled over the intercom, “We’re trailing clouds of glory.”

Mal scowled and stood up. “The sanitary system leakin’ again?”

“No,” she scolded, sing-song. “We get signal.”

“Could we try not speaking moon-chatter?” Jayne grumbled.

Simon looked dismayed. “Look, she’s gotten a lot better lately,” he protested. “You’ve got to admit that.”

“Better than she was,” Jayne grudgingly agreed, “but that ain’t saying much.”

“We have a moaning drone,” River protested from the speakers.

Zoe’s head came up. “Wait - one of the drones from the organization on Paquin?” Here eyes narrowed as she climbed to her feet. “I didn’t see any in the cargo bay - was there one in your rocket car?”

“I didn’t see one,” Banzai said.

Kaylee shook her head. “Neither did I,” she argued, “and I went over that thing pretty well.”

“On, not in,” River trilled.

Mal’s expression hardened even further. “You mean, it’s attached itself to the ship?”

“Like a tick on a tock,” River agreed.

\---

“At least it’s where the camera system could find it,” Inara pointed out.

That they were using the shuttle’s interface to the exterior cameras and not Serenity’s was an irony not lost on Mal. “That’s a hell of a scrambler it has,” he complained.

“It can’t be that good,” Buckaroo interrupted, “if the shuttlecraft’s sensor system wasn’t fooled.”

“Serenity wasn’t fooled, exactly,” Mal stated. “Just, if you look through that camera on the main system screen, it snows out.” He tapped the shuttle’s viewscreen controls with one finger. “Guess it can only scramble one system at once, though.”

“Lucky for us.” Inara adjusted the image width so everyone could see the target.

The drone looked not entirely unlike a chrome horseshoe crab with stubby triangular wings. The main body was a rough half-ellipsoid with a trailing pointed tail; the flat side was flush with the side of the ship not too far from the cargo bay hatch. It was far shinier than the ship’s hull, with no visible external sensors or antennae.

After a long state, Mal finally spoke. “Well, someone’s gonna have to do something about that.”

“I’ll go suit up,” Kaylee sighed. “Don’t want it doin’ anything to the hull we cain’t patch.”

Buckaroo raised one hand. “If you’d like,” he offered, “I’ll spot her out there.”

Zoe looked at him without turning her head. “I realize this might be news to you, doctor,” she said carefully, “but we just met you less than two hours ago, and technically you’re a stowaway.”

Mal added, “And even if we thought you were trustworthy -”

“He is,” River’s voice stated from somewhere in the hall by the shuttlecraft’s hatch.

Mal blinked, open-mouthed, then continued, “- and vetted by our slightly loopy but also slightly telepathic young pilot -”

Buckaroo’s eyes showed the first signs of real surprise since he’d taken off the helmet. “A telepath? Really? Have you actually demonstrated a statistically significant level of talent?”

River poked her head through the hatch. “You had a girlfriend, but she became your wife and died. Then you found her clone-half, and you stopped her before she died, too. Then your friend stopped her from dying again, but you had to ionize her back to life, which shouldn’t have worked, by the way.” She withdrew from the shuttlecraft and padded off down the hallway.

Buckaroo whistled softly. “Impressive. And I don’t think it’s possible to get the ionization off a cold read.”

“Can I finish?” Mal asked. He waited for Banzai to nod, and then continued, “Even assuming that you’re as trustworthy as you claim to be, and I’m not saying you’re not, just that we don’t know for sure, if you’ve given us your background correctly, then how would you even know how to put on a spacesuit?”

“Right,” Banzai agreed. “I guess our spaceware from my time would look pretty primitive to you. I’m actually one of the few people in the world who’s spacewalked from a privately owned spacecraft, but I’ve only done it twice, and only in low Earth orbit.”

Simon cocked an eyebrow. “That actually makes him more qualified than me,” he admitted.

Kaylee grinned. “Actually, Cap’n, if you’re not going to help me out, I’d just as soon have him. If he built the jet truck down there, he’s probably got the chops to help me un-weld that probe. Drone. Thingy.”

Mal threw his hands up. “Do we have a suit that’ll fit him?”

“We have one my size,” Simon observed, “and we’re pretty close.”

“Just get that barnacle off my hull,” Mal groaned as he pointed towards the suit locker.

\---

“You’re almost there,” Inara said crisply into the microphone on the shuttle control panel. “I can see someone’s boot on the far left side of the screen.”

“We have a visual on the foreign body,” Buckaroo replied, his voice crackling with static. “Kaylee, it’s at ten o’clock.”

Simon fretted silently at Inara’s shoulder. Personally, she would have rather had Mal here to supervise and Simon on Serenity’s instrument panel waiting for the camera to come back online, but Mal was trying every crash code in the book to break the scrambler, and Simon’s expertise didn’t extent to security system programming. Not that Mal’s really did either, but it was his ship, so if he wanted to try and counterhack, it wasn’t as if anyone could really tell him not to. (Zoe probably could talk him out of it, Inara mused, but she seemed to think that Mal needed to keep himself busy.)

“Okay, we’re here,” Kaylee announced, drawing Inara’s attention back to the screen. A toolbox swung at the top of her field of view, two magnetic pads visible on its base, and Kaylee was trying to crouch down while keeping the magnetic soles of the spacesuit flat on the hull. “I’m going to depolarize the magnet clamp that’s holding it in place,” she announced. “Dr. Banzai, would you please hand me the zapper? It’s the blue thing with the long handle.”

Buckaroo finished securing a cord to a protrusion on the hull, then looped it around the handle of the toolbox twice and tied it. He opened the latch on the side of the box, then the zipper on the interior flap, and withdrew a foot-long tool with a battery pack on on one end and two exposed contacts on the other. “This right?” he asked, extending it towards Kaylee.

“Yup, that’s the right one.” She touched the contacts to the space where the drone and the hull came together and pressed a button; a bright blue spark flared. Her glove came down on top of the probe and pushed, but it didn’t budge.

“Huh,” Kaylee said, clearly surprised.

“What does ‘huh’ mean in this case?” Mal’s voice demanded over the speakers.

“Hold on.” Kaylee set the contacts against the base of the probe on the other side, held down the button, and rotated the tool around the whole probe. Again, she pushed; nothing happened.

“Holding,” Mal reminded her.

“The internal electromagnets must take up most of the interior,” Kaylee huffed. “This thing ain’t budging, and I’ve given it all the volts that are safe for the hull.”

Buckaroo reached into the toolbox and pulled out a plain screwdriver and tapped it against the bottom of the box; it adhered, briefly, until he tugged it away.

Mal asked, “If you give it more volts than are safe for the hull, how bad is it for the hull?”

“We might be talking multiple micropunctures,” Kaylee answered. “I have a couple of patches in the kit, but I don’t want to use them if we . . . Dr. Banzai, what are you doing?”

Buckaroo leaned into the frame of the image and tapped the drone in several places with the tip of the screwdriver. “I don’t think it’s being held on electromagnetically,” he said, carefully. “Here, you try.”

Kaylee paused, then took the screwdriver and repeated the process. “Oh, gosh, Dr. Banzai’s right,” she announced. “The probe’s not attracting ferrous metal, and neither is the hull near where it’s attached. And there’s not enough room in this thing for an electromagnet that strong and enough shielding to have it only stick to the hull.”

There was a long pause; Kaylee shifted on the screen and lowered her helmet to the hull. Finally, Simon leaned in to the mike, and asked, “So - what does that mean?”

There was a muffled, “Dr. Banzai, take a look?” as Kaylee stood up and took the toolbox. Buckaroo eased into a crouch and poked at the interface between the drone and the hull, then looked up. “My guess would be superglue,” he hazarded.

“Super- _what_?” Mal blurted.

“I dunno about super, but I think he’s right about the glue,” Kaylee grumbled. “It looks like it’s adhered to the hull - I think I can see some of the cyanoepoxy sticking out at the back.” She knelt, handing the toolbox back to Buckaroo and unzipped the flap. “I guess they weren’t worried about getting it back. Seems wasteful, don’t it?”

“Well,” Mal pondered, “I’d figured that was the local protection racket, trying to collect bounty on us. So I wouldn’t have thought they’d want to spend expensive equipment like that on us at all.”

Buckaroo steadied the toolbox as Kaylee took something longer than the zapper from the toolbox and began attaching a fuel tank the size of his gloved thumb to it. “Pardon me for asking,” he said, “but what’s the price on your head?”

“Enough,” Mal grunted. “Assuming they get to us early enough that the Alliance government is still standing to pay it.”

Kaylee lit the thermal cutter; a red-hot point appeared at one end, and she lowered it to the drone’s dome. “Easy, there,” she murmured.

“Enough for one bounty hunter? For a local gang?” Buckaroo continued.

Zoe broke in. “Enough to feed a settlement of a thousand mouths for a year, give or take.”

Buckaroo whistled, long and low. “So, enough to attract the attention of more than just a local racket.”

Kaylee twisted the dial to douse the thermal cutter and switched it to her off hand. “Okay,” she announced, “I’ve cut the dome off this thing; I’m going to pry it open.” She grabbed the screwdriver and poked it into the new opening.

What happened next was hard for Inara to follow. There was a bright flash, and the camera vibrated madly; at the same time, the hull of the ship rang with a dull, discordant note. When the camera refocused, there was a dull black lump on the hull where the drone had been. The view was otherwise clear.

“Kaylee!” Simon dove for the microphone as Mal snarled something about ramming eels where no star would shine in Mandarin. “Kaylee, where are you?”

“We’re up here,” Buckaroo’s voice came back, a little shaky but clear. “I think we lost most of the contents of the toolbox, though.”

“What the _di yu_ happened?” Mal roared.

“It was booby-trapped,” Kaylee gasped. “Blew up when I lifted the lid on it. Knocked the wind clean outta me, and threw us both clear of the ship.”

“You adrift?” Mal’s words were sharp and clear; Inara heard footsteps ringing in the main corridor.

“Negative,” Buckaroo answered. “We caught the toolbox tether just in time.”

“What he means,” Kaylee breathed, “is that he kept a hold on his wits and the toolbox and my suit all at the same time. I dunno how he didn’t dislocate both shoulders.”

“I’m more worried about my suit. There wasn’t much shell shrapnel, since your engineer here got the casing off in one piece, but I think one of the interior components may have pierced it somewhere,” Buckaroo reported.

“Yeah, I’m reading your pressure dropping,” Mal replied. “Not fast. Can you get back to the hull, or should I send Jayne out to get you?”

“I’m already at the airlock, sir,” Zoe reported.

“Give us a minute,” Buckaroo answered; his voice was followed by a mumbled “Can you grab that?” and an even less clear “Okay.” 

A few moments later, Kaylee’s boots swung into view on the screen and made contact with the hull. “I’m down,” she announced. “Dr. Banzai, should I reel you in?”

“Go ahead.”

Kaylee’s arms swung out of shot as her shoulders worked. Another few moments passed, and then Buckaroo drifted sideways into the top of the frame, the toolbox now clutched to his chest. Kaylee rotated him until his boots jerked against the hull, and he pulled himself upright.

“Okay,” she announced. “I’m going to see if I can chip what’s left of this thing off the hull. Dr. Banzai, you leave the toolbox here and go back inside; we don’t want you losing air out here, and the sooner we can patch the tear, the better.”

“Jayne,” Mal ordered, “go help our stowaway out of his suit and send him to the doc to get checked out. Simon, you head over there and then help him down to sickbay if he needs it. Oh, look, the camera just came back online.” There was a soft thump, as if he had slapped the side of the security panel. “Big help you were. Jayne, if Kaylee’s not on her way back by the time you get Banzai out of the suit, you suit up and go help her.”

“Won’t need it,” Kaylee assured him. “This thing’s fried; it’s nearly glassed.” She hunted in the toolbox and came out with a chisel. “It’ll come off in one lump or not at all.”

“Be right there,” Buckaroo said, lurching out of the frame.

Simon stood. “You okay here by yourself?” he asked Inara.

“If Mal’s got visuals back,” she observed, “I’m just the back-up pair of eyes now.”

“Right,” Simon said, and ducked into the corridor at a half-run.

Inara watched Kaylee chisel the lump of carbon off the hull and fling it into deep space before packing up the toolbox and following Buckaroo off the screen. The scorched baseplate of the limpet drone still clung to the hull; Inara offered a silent prayer that it was as inert as it looked as she changed the view to the next camera.

\---

“See anyone yet?” Mal’s voice was clipped. He hadn’t intended to bring his ship’s doctor along on the drop-off, much less their hanger-on, but Banzai had wanted to see what the future looked like, and Mal hadn’t been able to come up with a good reason to confine him to the ship. Simon had insisted that, if Banzai was coming, he was, too - for all his protestations, the man from the past had strained a shoulder keeping Kaylee from flying off into the black. Zoe had pointed out that it wasn’t a good idea for someone so green to be wanding around the markets of Muir on his own, and that it would be damn near suicidal not to have both her and Jayne at the drop-off. So here they all were, with only River, Kaylee, and Inara to look after the ship. Suns help anyone who tried to get on board with those three working together.

When had it become so hard to just say, “Because it’s my ship and I said no,” Mal wondered? He was sure he’d been able to say it before. There was something strange about Banzai, as if he were used to being trusted, no matter who he ran across.

“One man, one woman. No visible weapons,” Zoe reported. “Both wearing flowers in their lapels.”

“Purple carnations?” Mal asked.

“Purple and round,” Zoe answered back. “Not sure I can tell a carnation from a chrysanthemum or a zinnia at this range.”

Mal caught her eye; she shifted her jaw just slightly and raised an eyebrow. Not quite a smile, but yes, that had been a joke.

Well, good. He’d hate to think she’d buried her sense of humor with her husband.

“Good enough.” Mal leaned back against the wooden wall of the booth. This particular market stall was currently unoccupied, except they were occupying it at the moment. Guessing from the sign at the back, a few lingering scents, and the occasional residue on the shelves, it was usually used for selling honey, molasses, and maple and birch syrups. Probably for the products of their fermentation under the counter, if the couple of carboys back there were anything to go by.

The couple ducked in under the curtain that hung across the front of the booth. “ ‘Allo,” the woman said, a cheerful smile wrinkling her face lightly. “You got the goods for inspection?”

Mal lifted one of the three metal chests onto the counter. “Right here. Take a look at your leisure.”

The man removed his cap, a shapeless porkpie with a battered brim, and removed a small metal cylinder from it. It blinked in varying patterns of blue and green as he ran it over the lid. “Looks shipshape, Murph,” he mumbled, and unlatched the lid on either side. A fain plume of dust scattered as he lifted the lid.

“Hmm,” Murph said, lifting one of the books from the box. It was a paperback, its cover battered and the edges of its pages yellowed. She turned it over, then flipped through it. “Not the best condition, but it looks like they’re all still intact. We can probably interest a few collectors.”

Buckaroo’s eyes lit up. “That’s an Asimov reprint! When are these from?”

“A what?” Murph scowled at him.

“That’s the first book in the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov,” Buckaroo explained breathlessly.

“I know,” Murph growled. “It says so on the back cover.”

“It’s one of the seminal works of science fiction,” Buckaroo continued, hands working the air. “He’s - I mean Asimov used to be hugely influential in the genre, and while I'd say the Robot series is his finest work, that easily takes second place.” He looked over the edge of the chest. “I didn’t realize you were smuggling _books_. I thought you said this was an antiques drop-off.”

“They _are_ antiques,” Simon explained. “Paper is expensive; most distribution of print literature is on pads and other readers, except in the Core worlds, where paper books are sort of a status symbol, or out on the Rim where the battery power to run a tablet is even more expensive than the paper would be.” He checked inside the front cover of _Foundation_. “These are reprints from the first half of the 23rd century, nearly three hundred years old.”

Buckaroo’s eyes scanned the contents. “Asimov, Varley, LeGuin, Robinson, Sturgeon - Heinlein! These are the giants of the genre here!”

Mal cocked an eyebrow at Simon. “I’ve heard of Asimov, I think. Aren’t the big terraformers called Asimovs after him?”

“Yes. And there are a couple of short stories about robotics he wrote in the high school literature courses.” Simon looked at Banzai’s face, then back into the chest. “And one Heinlein novel. I don’t recognize the rest of these authors, though.”

“They’re great.” Dr. Banzai looked back at Simon. “You shouldn’t be selling these to antiques dealers; these are cultural treasures!”

“ ‘Ell of a sales pitch, there,” the man with the cap said dryly.

Murph rapped on the next chest with her knuckles. “What’s in this one?”

As the man in the cap scanned it, Jayne popped it open. “Huh,” he muttered. “Not so many spaceships in this one. Lots of horses, though.”

“Classic literature,” Buckaroo said, his eyes wide. “Jane Austin, the Bronte sisters, Mary Shelley.”

“I thought Shelley was a poet?” Zoe asked. Mal glanced back over his shoulder at her; she seemed sincere.

Buckaroo nodded. “That’s her husband.” He moved a few of the books over, earning a glare from Murph. “Hawthorn, Hemmingway, Melville - Twain!”

“Melville, I know,” Murph said in spite of herself. “That’s the one with the giant fish, isn’t it?”

“A whale, not a fish,” Buckaroo corrected her. “But yes. That’s not his best work, but _Moby Dick_ is the one I see here.”

The man in the cap opened the last chest. “Ah, these are bigger volumes,” he said gleefully. “They’ll fetch a higher price.”

Murph turned around. “A complete Shakespeare! That’ll be a prize for some collector, that will.”

Simon turned to Buckaroo. “We all still know who Shakespeare was, don’t worry.”

Buckaroo bent down to look at the titles. “Dryden? Marlowe? Oh, there’s some Bryon and Coleridge, too.”

“Those are all poets, right?” Mal felt a little less uncomfortable; he recognized all of those names.

“And playwrights, most of them,” Buckaroo agreed. “These are quite the treasure chests, here.”

Murph sat up. “I think the university library might want to get their ‘ands on these,” she announced. “The smaller ones, anyway. The big ones will get decent enough prices on the collectibles market.”

Mal recognized the opening stanzas of a haggle. “Now, your associate back on Persephone said you’d offer us 1000 credits for the lot if it was in sellable condition.”

“Looks like it is.” Murph shot Buckaroo a hard look. “Seems like you’d have had your expert go over the goods before the meeting.”

“Didn’t realize old literature was a hobby of his, actually,” Mal said, shrugging lightly. “He’s supposed to be backup if we need an extra gun hand.”

Murph nodded once. “500 for the last chest, 400 for each of the other two, in platinum. Try and bargain with me and it goes back to 1000 for the three lots together.”

Mal’s eyebrows jumped. He’d been prepared to accept 900. “Only if you have the money with you right now.”

“I’ll have a runner bring it.” Murph reached under her glove and touched something on the back of her hand; a comlink beeped.

\---

“We undercharged her, didn’t we?” Jayne had been watching Mal’s face since the runner had brought the money. He was now carting one chest instead of three, but the contents were significantly heavier.

“May have,” Zoe answered for the captain. “To hear Dr. Banzai tell it, it was a better haul than they were expecting.”

Mal shrugged. “We got paid more than we were promised, to the tune of three hundred in platinum coin. I’d say that’s a win, wouldn’t you?”

“Long as no one else tries to take it,” Jayne agreed.

“I hate to mention it,” Buckaroo said softly, “but we’re being followed.”

Mal and Zoe locked eyes. “Of course we are,” they groaned in unison. “Description?” Zoe continued alone.

“Male, tall, dark hair, wearing a padded jacket and leather pants,” Buckaroo described their stalker. “No visible weapon, but he could be hiding a handgun easily under that jacket. About thirty meters behind us, on the other side of the street.”

Zoe nodded. “There’s someone on top of the fuel station watching us, too.”

Mal checked his holster, then sighed. “Okay. Gunplay starts, Jayne, I want you to make a break for the ship; get the payment secured, then come back with the heavy weaponry. Zoe, keep you eye on the high ground; I’ll take -”

“Stop right there!” The voice came from somewhere to their right; a short, wiry man in a striped vest was leveling a pistol at them. “I aim to collect the bounty on your head, Captain Reynolds!”

“You might have some competition there,” Mal snapped, whipping out his own piece. Zoe already had hers in hand; Buckaroo had drawn, too, although where his gun had come from, Jayne had no idea.

Jayne surveyed the intersection. There wasn’t a crowd, but there were enough people and pedicabs between the padded jacket guy and them to keep him from making it to them, or firing at them unless he didn’t care about bystanders. The ship docks were about ten blocks away, straight forward.

Running didn’t feel right, but dropping a box with 1300 in platinum seemed like an even worse idea, and it was too heavy to haul one-handed and shoot at the same time.

As it happened, it was the guy on the fuel station who opened fire first; the pedestrians shrieked, and suddenly the space between them and the jacket guy was full of chaos. Jayne put his head down and pounded pavement; with everyone else running, he’d stand out less. One bullet zipped past his shoulder, a clean miss.

He tried to count shots as he ran. Four, five - only one more from above. Hopefully, that meant Zoe’d got the sniper. By the time he made the turn to the ship, the shots had stopped.

Kaylee was sitting beside the ramp looking up at the scorch mark on the hull as he pounded up into the cargo hold. “Jayne? What’s going -” she started.

Jayne grabbed Vera from the hidey-hole under the stairs. “Tell River to get ready to fire up,” he panted. “We got paid, but we got trouble.”

“On it!” Kaylee darted past him and swept up the stairs.

The pavement seemed much clearer as Jayne jogged back down the boulevard. Looked like the crowd had gotten under cover. Good for them.

Two blocks later, Mal was racing towards him. “Jayne, relieve Zoe, I need her to cover us,” he barked, his gun still tight in his hand.

“Right.” Jayne’s eyes found Zoe; she and the new guy had Simon propped up between them - had he passed out?

No, that was blood on his shirt. _Tama de_.

Jayne slid into Zoe’s space as she handed Simon’s shoulder off to him. “You see anyone?” she hissed, readying her mare’s leg instead of a handgun this time.

“Streets’re pretty clear,” he mumbled back. “You get all three?”

“Mal plugged the guy in the jacket. First time he didn’t go down, so he got him in the head,” she answered. “The other one was firing at me and missed; got the doctor in the chest.” She took a breath. “Dr. Banzai put a bullet through the wrist of the guy on the refilling station. Damnedest shot I ever saw.”

“Not bad.” Jayne leaned down and scooped Simon’s legs up. “Let go,” he ordered Buckaroo, “it’ll be faster if I just carry him. Pissant ain’t heavy.”

“I can still hear you, you know,” Simon mumbled. Good, the doc was still being prissy. That meant he wasn’t in shock yet.

Jayne took off at a loping jog. The doctor’s blood was seeping into his shirt. Wasn’t the first time he’d had someone bleed on him, and it didn’t feel like it was coming fast enough to bleed out, but the doc was going pale. Mal ran grimly in front of him, gun ready; Zoe and Buckaroo trotted behind and to either side, eyes on the lookout.

“Dammit!” Buckaroo swore, and fired off another shot. A half-disc of metal tumbled out of the air and crashed into the pavement behind them.

“What was that?” Mal shouted without turning around.

“Another limpet drone, sir!” Zoe called back. “Looks like it came from the fuel station.”

“Those sacks of _go se_ followed us here?” Jayne wasn’t sure he believed that.

Mal grunted, “Or they had associates here, and got enough from their last drone to figure out where we were headed.” He made the turn towards their dock; Jayne cornered hard and followed.

Four pairs of feet thundered up the ramp. “Take her up!” Mal called to the ceiling; the engines began to hum to life as the hatch started to swing up.

Buckaroo slid his finger across part of his strangely slender pistol - Jayne guessed he was putting the safety on - and shoved it into his shirt. Did he have a holster under there? Jayne squinted; now that he knew where to look, yeah, there was something strapped under the shirt, just below the ribs.

Mal pointed with his free hand. “Get him to the medbay. Now.”

“Does this ship have a doctor?” Buckaroo asked.

Jayne called back over his shoulder, “Yeah, but I’m holding him.”

“I’ve done more neuroscience than trauma surgery,” Buckaroo stated, “but I can handle the basics. I’ve pulled bullets before.” He fell in step behind Jayne.

“If you kill him, his telepathic, scary-good-with-an-axe, crazy little sister will be very, very upset,” Mal said, taking the stairs at run.

Jayne shoved open the medbay door and set Simon on the table, trying not to jostle his shoulder too badly. “What first?” he grunted.

Simon’s face was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and his eyes were starting to turn glassy. “Help me get my shirt off,” he asked, tugging at the buttons with his good hand.

Buckaroo found the sink and began scrubbing up. “Where are the scalpels?”

Simon shifted to look at Buckaroo. “Do they have anesthesia yet when you’re from?”

“Yes,” Buckaroo answered gently. “Anything I don’t recognize, you can talk me through. But first, we need to get the bullet out, and I can’t imagine that’s changed much in five-hundred-some-odd years.”

“Second drawer on the left,” Simon gasped. Jayne realized he was going to be in the way, and carefully closed the door behind him as the two doctors started analyzing the patient’s condition.

\---

Inara eased her way into the engine compartment. Usually, Kaylee came to her when she needed reassurance or advice, but this seemed to be a different sort of emergency for her. Nothing either one of them could do would do anything for Simon until this stranger finished treating the wound.

 _This stranger_ , Inara thought. It was hard to remember that Dr. Banzai had only been aboard the ship for a little over a day. There was something about him that inspired trust; Inara guessed it was that he was used to being trusted and respected back home, without developing a need for it. He didn’t beg or demand it; he just assumed that it was already there, and so it was easy to react to him as if that were true.

Besides, he had already saved Kaylee from, at best, a long, terrifying tumble in the black, and at worst, death by suffocation when her suit ran out of air. If anyone on the ship had reason to trust Dr. Banzai, it was Kaylee.

Inara found her underneath a plasma conduit in a corner of the room, her face smudged with tears and dust. Carefully arranging her skirt so as to avoid catching too much of the grit on the floor, Inara settled into a spot on the floor close enough that Kaylee could lean on her if she chose, but far enough away that she could avoid contact if she wished, and waited silently for her to speak.

It took longer than Inara expected, but finally Kaylee wiped both eyes with the back of her hand and sniffled, “Y’heard anything yet?”

“I went down to see if they were done,” Inara said carefully, “and they weren’t yet. But Dr. Banzai had Simon under sedation, and I saw that the bullet was successfully removed. It’s just a matter of repairing the damage that can be repaired and closing the wound, now.”

Kaylee looked up; her eyes were red and ringed with dirt where she’d wiped them. “So they got the lead out of him, but he’s still bleeding, you mean.”

Inara leaned in a little closer, her hand not quite on Kaylee’s knee. “I’m no doctor, Kaylee, but it looked like things were going well. You’ve seen Simon patch Jayne and the captain up when they’ve taken much worse.” Her voice lowered a note or two. “And you, too.”

“Mal and Jayne are a lot tougher than Simon,” Kaylee said, as the corners of her eyes began to leak again. “An’ we had the best doctor in the whole ‘verse taking care of us.”

“And Dr. Banzai had him guiding him through the surgery until he believed he was in good hands,” Inara pointed out.

“I certainly did,” Buckaroo agreed, slipping lightly into the compartment. “He’s not only an excellent surgeon, he’s a great teacher.” He looked around the room, taking in every wire, pipeline, and indicator. “I don’t pretend to completely understand the unpleasantness that put a price on your heads, but once it’s done, I hope he considers becoming a medical school instructor.”

Kaylee looked like she wanted to say something, but all that came out of her mouth was a squeak and a sob.

Inara uncrossed her ankles and rose from the floor. “Was the surgery a success, Dr. Banzai?”

“Very much so,” Buckaroo agreed. “The bullet didn’t puncture any organs or splinter any bones, and the wound has been cleaned and closed. The sterilizer’s amazing, by the way. I really wish I could take the plans for that back with me. Anyway, he’ll have that arm in a sling for a while to immobilize it while the torn muscle tissue heals, but after that it should be good as new.” He smiled brightly.

Kayle ground the heels of her hands against her eyes, then looked up at him. “He’s gonna be okay?” she croaked.

“He’s going to be just fine, with a little time and tender care,” Buckaroo assured her. Carefully, he knelt down so his head was nearly level with hers. “He’ll be under sedation for a few more hours, but once he wakes up, I’m sure he’d love to have someone help him sit up - if he tries to do it himself, he’ll be sore.”

“Yeah.” A glimmer of a grin twitched at the corner of Kaylee’s mouth. “I can do that.”

Buckaroo stood back up and waved at the plasma conduit. “In the meantime,” he asked, “could you tell me a little about what powers the ship? I’m not sure I understand what all this is for. Don’t worry,” he continued as Inara started to object, “I don’t have the materials technology to build any of this back home even if I did get it all. You won’t cross-contaminate the timeline or anything.”

Kaylee uncoiled herself from her position on the floor. “Well,” she started, “it all begins with the fuel cells, which are set up to feed low-temperature plasma into the compression block engine.”

“What sort of fuel do the cells use?” Bucakroo asked, watching her hands as she pointed.

Inara nodded her good-byes and slipped back out of the engine room. She wasn’t completely sure whether Dr. Banzai actually wanted to know how the engines functioned, and she was fairly sure that a twentieth-century mind wouldn’t be able to grasp them even if he truly was curious. Whether it was genuine or for show, though, it seemed to be distracting Kaylee from fretting about Simon, so Inara was more than happy to leave him to it.

She was halfway back to the shuttlecraft when Mal leaned out of a doorway and waved her over. “Hey,” he said quietly, “we need somewhere else to be and a good reason to be there.”

Inara touched her hand to her lips, trying not to laugh. “No matter where we go, there we’ll be. Isn’t that reason enough?” she asked.

“Not if those chumps chasing us are a coordinated effort,” Mal grumbled. “Individual bounty hunters we can handle. A mob? That’s a little tougher. And I’d like to be where they’re not, and not look all suspicious-like when we get there.”

She nodded slowly. “So, someplace where at least one of us has work.”

“Yeah, that.” He glanced down and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “So, seeing as I got nothing, and until the doc recovers I’d just as soon not go in anywhere shooting the place up, I was thinking we could find someplace to dock and refuel real quick, and while we were there, you could - check in with your home base.”

Inara’s eyebrows lifted. “You want me to call in for an assignment from the Companion’s Guild?”

“Preferably one out on the Rim. Ain’t thrilled with it,” he admitted, “but it’d give us something for the moment that wouldn’t look too suspicious.”

“Right.” She studied Mal’s face. “I’ll call in, but I can’t guarantee anything. With the recent unrest, there’s been less call for Companionship.”

“Better than what I’ve got now,” he said, resigned.

\---

“You’re looking much better,” Dr. Banzai said, as he and Kaylee entered what had once been the passenger’s quarters. It had been Simon’s and River’s bunk so long, Kaylee had started to think of it that way.

“The shoulder joint is extremely stiff,” Simon complained, as Kaylee helped him sit up. “Even if it weren’t immobilized, I’m sure I’d have very limited range of motion at the moment.”

“The better to keep it in place,” Buckaroo replied. “You’ve got some fascinating equipment back there.”

Simon let out a short, mirthless laugh. “That’s nothing. Battlefield medicine doesn’t change much over time, I suspect - you only have what you can fit in the little black bag.” He sighed, and allowed Kaylee to settle a pillow behind his lower back. “I wish I could show you what a real hospital looks like.”

“If that’s just a MASH unit, then I’d love to see a full operating suite,” Buckaroo agreed.

Kaylee let her attention drift slightly as they talked shop. It was the same thing Dr. Banzai had done with her, she realized; he’d drawn her out of herself and into her work. The only odd thing was how much of both their professions Dr. Banzai seemed genuinely able to follow, despite half a millennium’s worth of technological progress since his day.

And Simon seemed to be responding well, too. He’d had most of his color back when they’d come in, but now he’d lost that ill-looking greenish tinge. He still looked a little pale, but then, he’d lost rather more blood than she really wanted to think about. All things considered, that he could sit up and talk about the minutia of medicine with Dr. Banzai was a miracle.

So far, she mused, Dr. Banzai had probably saved both her life and Simon’s, and certainly made the captain’s life safer in the firefight. Even if she hadn’t wanted the opportunity to dissect and rebuild his jet-fueled transport, she’d want to keep him around for longer.

“ - And when I finally got to scan her, see what they’d done to her,” Simon was saying with a visceral shudder. “All of the dampening systems around the amygdala had been - stripped bare.”

Buckaroo’s eyes went wide. “So they removed her ability to ignore anything?”

“Right.” Simon’s hands clenched into fists in his lap. “I still don’t know exactly why they did what they did, but my current theory is that even in exceptionally psychically gifted individuals, the amount of signal is very low. Some of the scarring elsewhere in the cortex seems to have been an attempt to boost that signal, but when that didn’t produce the results they wanted, they made it impossible for her to ignore it. Even that tiny amount of information couldn’t be pushed aside by much louder sensory input anymore.”

Buckaroo whistled softly. “I realize this is very personal,” he said, his voice calm and low, “and that my science is out of date, but neuroscience is my specialty. Would it be possible for me to look at the scans?”

Simon swallowed. “I don’t mind,” he replied, “but you really ought to ask the patient as well as her doctor.”

“Of course.” Buckaroo dropped his head. “Where are my professional manners? River, may I look at your medical records?”

River stuck her head around the edge of the doorway. “You heard me out here,” she stated.

“Even barefoot, these metal floors scuff,” Buckaroo said. “May I?”

“I’ve seen the inside of your head,” she mused, stepping all the way into the room. “You might as well see mine.” She bent over, parting her hair with her hands. “You can still see the scars, too,” she announced. “They make a map of spaceways that circle the blue sun and go nowhere good.”

Simon tried to lean over and flinched. “Kaylee,” he murmured, “could you get the folder and my tablet out of the drawer beneath the bed?”

“Sure thing!” Kaylee dropped to one knee and popped open the drawer. The tablet was easy enough to find; she handed it up to Dr. Banzai while she groped underneath a few shirts for the folder.

When she got up, Simon was projecting an image of a brain in golden light, with lines and planes of garish orange criss-crossing it. Buckaroo’s fingers traced a few of them, then flew to River’s head and lightly found the scars. “Even if the product is a fully functioning telepath,” he whispered, “this is monstrous work.”

“I’m hardly fully functioning, either,” River admitted as her lips twisted into a pout. She looked up at her brother proudly, and announced, “I’m getting better, though.”

Buckaroo tapped a finger against his jaw, deep in thought. “Have you tried titrating her serotonin re-uptake?”

Simon blinked, startled. “I don’t think she’s depressed, Dr. Banzai.”

“No, I don’t think so either,” Buckaroo explained, “but several of the people around her are. And the amygdala is where emotion is processed.” He looked back at River. “You soak up other people’s moods, too, don’t you?”

“When they leave them lying around the ship, like puddles. I splash. I can’t help it.” River looked at Simon, wide-eyed. “The ship still mourns them.”

Kaylee looked away as the images of Wash and Book flashed through her mind. Vaguely, she wondered whether River could push things out of her mind into other people’s as well as pulling them out of other people’s brains into her own. It didn’t matter, though, at least this time. Good thing she’d cried her eyes out already; remembering Wash only made them sting now.

River met Bucakroo’s eyes and stared for a moment. “Our Rawhide,” she explained. “It wasn’t so long ago for us.”

Buckaroo’s normally placid face crumpled for a second, before he regained his composure. “Then I’m sure he’s deeply missed,” he replied, with a hint of roughness to his voice that hadn’t been there previously. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. “And if I hadn’t already believed you were a telepath, that would have convinced me.”

River’s lips curled at their edges into a tiny smile. “You’ve got wonders in your home ‘verse, too,” she admonished him. “I’d love to meet some of your aliens. The nice ones, I mean.”

Simon’s head snapped up. “Aliens?” he asked, sharply. “And you’ve met them?”

Kaylee said nothing, but her eyes were huge.

\---

“Well,” Mal said, and stopped, surveying the galley. “Lots of messes to clean up.”

Beaumonde was, in a sense, where the real trouble had started, and it was still going. They’d eschewed their usual port of call for a smaller city on the edge of one of the planet’s hauntingly cerulean oceans, mostly because they were hoping not to be recognized, but partly because their previous haunts were curerntly going through what the local news claimed were their seventh round of anti-Alliance riots.

Jayne tossed his breakfast mug into the sink, wandered back over to the table, and looked over Simon’s shoulder at the tablet scrolling the news. “Looks like they set a whole barracks on fire,” he noted. “Pretty good work.”

“It’s happening all over the system,” Simon pointed out. “They seem to be getting away with it more here; there were mass arrests on Bellerophon yesterday.”

Mal rinsed a plate clean, dried it haphazardly, and shoved it into the cabinet. “I do wish Inara had managed to find a less crowded world to check in with her people.”

“The other option,” Simon reminded him, “would be to use their network, and we have no idea whether our transmissions are traceable right now.”

“Right.” Mal glared at the remaining dishes, decided none of them were his, and dropped back into a chair. “Which is what Kaylee and the new guy have gone into down for, right? Getting that last scrap off my hull so we know they’re not reading us or tracing us.”

“Be nice if we could figure out who it was,” Jayne grunted.

Simon looked over the top of the tablet. “I think I have an idea,” he offered. “There’s a news story on here about a high-tech, low-manpower protection racket that’s been hitting settlements out on the Rim. It’s the usual ‘nice place, shame if something should happen’ routine, but both the damages and the patrolling are done using remote drones. They’ve tended to stick to places where that sort of thing is only vaguely illegal or otherwise hard to prosecute, and where other people don’t have the resources to whip up a drone army of their own.”

“Could be them,” Jayne agreed.

Mal shifted seats. “They got a photo of the drones?”

“Only a ‘protection’ one, much bigger than ours.” Simon tilted the tablet towards the captain; the screen showed something halfway between a horseshoe crab and a manta ray in shape.

“Still, looks kinda similar.” Mal nodded to himself. “So, if it’s them, they’re probably straight-up after our bounty, not the ship.”

“Well, that ain’t fair,” Jayne grumbled. “A racket like that should leave bounties to the independent hunters.”

“But,” Simon argued, “think about how expensive it must be for them to expand their operation; it’s resource-heavy. And the bounty on either myself and River, or on Mal and Zoe, would easily be enough to finance expansion onto another couple of worlds for them.”

The intercom crackled to life. “There are visitors,” River announced from the speaker. “Shall I tell them they are unwelcome?”

“Wait a minute, I’ll come get a visual,” Mal answered, and jogged to the cockpit. River turned a screen towards him; two middle-aged, pot-bellied men in dark suits shifted back and forth uncomfortably in the heat and humidity.

Mal pressed the button for the outside intercom. “This is Captain Reynolds,” he stated. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“We, er, we heard you carry unusual cargo,” one of the men said. “Thought you might be able to be a courier for us.”

“Might be, if the pay’s good,” Mal acknowledged, “but we’re already booked for our next leg.”

“This isn’t a rush job,” said the other man, sounding less nervous. “We care that it gets to the right place, safely. How long it takes is less of a concern.”

Mal muted the intercom and glanced over at River. “Any comments?”

“Not the water, the fire next time,” she answered, inspecting her toenails.

“Not real helpful there, _mei-mei_ ,” he muttered, heading towards the stairs. As he passed the galley, he stuck his head in. “Hey, Zoe, Jayne, cover me.”

“Got it,” they chorused, rising to their feet and following him down.  
Mal opened the cargo bay door manually. The two men in suits stepped aside to let the ramp down, then waited for Mal to come down to ground level. He checked that Jayne and Zoe were in position, then nodded to them. “Good morning. What do you gentlemen have, and where is it going?”

One reached into his coat and removed a bag of black fabric, in the approximate size and shape of a large cucumber. “It won’t take up much room,” he started. “And it’s technically not contraband.”

Mal raised one eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Technically.”

The other man smiled and shrugged. “In the core worlds, it would be, but not here, and not at its destina-” The portly fellow was suddenly cut off by the sound of a beam weapon; his eyes flared as a blaze of violet seared across his shoulders, and he toppled forward.

“ _Go se_!” The first man in the suit shoved the bag back into his suit; his hand came back out with a small, snub-nosed revolver. “I hate these guys!” he snarled, peeling away from the ramp and looking for cover.

“I ain’t real fond of the _hun dan_ either,” Jayne replied. Vera barked twice in his hand, and a winged half-disc of metal spun out of control and crashed half a block away.

Mal had already bounded up the ramp; he peered around the edge of the cargo doorway. “You having trouble with these guys around here?”

“They’re a real pest.” The man in the suit shaded his eyes. “There, on the roof of the marina lobby,” he grumbled. “That’s either one of their hired guns or the drone controller. They’ve been trying to move in on good, honest smugglers like myself and my brother for the last month; we’ve been telling them to shove it up their _pigu_ sideways.”

“Been hassling us, too,” Mal grunted. Another larger drone appeared, above them and closing fast; he fired, and it wheeled off to the left.

“Can’t imagine why,” the man in the suit smirked. “Has there ever been a higher price on someone’s head? Lucky for you, you’re popular.” He edged over to his fallen brother, hunting for a pulse with his empty hand. “Still breathing,” he sighed in relief.

A few people in the streets were starting to look up and point. “Great,” Mal muttered under his breath, “more bystanders.”

Another beam sizzled the air and missed Zoe by inches. She shifted the mare’s leg on the crate in front of her and grabbed a pistol from her holster instead. “Another one closing on the right, sir,” she called out.

“I see it.” Mal fired; the shiny surface of the drone dented and it wobbled in its flight path. Jayne caught it on the other wing with a low shot, and it spun out of control.

A shout came from the growing crowd on the street. “Alliance patsies!” “Control addicts!” “Bounty hunters!”

Mal squatted as one of the smaller drones whizzed past, barely missing the ship. “Oh, no,” he growled, picking it off and ducking back in before the larger one could get a shot at him. “You’re not doing the remora routine again. I have had it up to here with that.”

The crowd seemed to have doubled in size already. “Self-determination for Beaumonde!” someone screamed, and the rest of the mob shouted wordless agreement. A traffic signal began to rock in place, as did two street signs, as the crowd surged against them.

Jayne fired, then hissed. “ _Kao_. The guy on the roof is going to be really hard to pick off from this angle.”

The revolver spat from beneath the ramp, taking out another small drone. “Keep an eye out for a second assassin,” the man in the suit warned. “They usually come in twos or threes.”

The crowd roared; the traffic signal went down and disappeared into a squirming mass of hands. “Alliance off of Beaumonde!” shouted a ragged group of voices, and were echoed by a larger mass.

“Yeah, we got that when we took out the last batch,” Zoe said. She squeezed off another two shots. “Got that one. On our right, sir!”

“No problem.” Mal dropped another large drone. “And I see two-thirds of our lost lambs making their way back.”

Buckaroo was at the wheel of the mule; Kaylee was perched on a large pile of what looked like spare ship parts in the back. They were making their way around the outside of the crowd, but the surging horde had slowed them to a crawl.

Mal glanced across at Zoe. “I’m going to try and harness my new-found notoriety,” he announced. “Try and keep the drones off of me.”

“Your funeral, sir,” Zoe agreed mildly, as she reloaded.

Mal stepped out onto the ramp. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Hey! Can you guys let the mule there through? They’re okay!”

The crowd roared again, and the two street signs went down. A path started to clear between the mule and the ship, although it was ragged and wobbly. Buckaroo put his head down and started to speed up.

A drone banked and dove for the mule. Mal and the man in the suit both fired, and it dropped into the mob; a few seconds later, there was a muffled ‘whoomp’, and a cloud of smoke rose from its landing zone. The crowd shrieked and began to surge.

“Oh, no,” Mal groaned, “no, don’t turn into a full-blown riot until we have our stuff back.”

“Good thing the drone beams don’t have very good range,” Jayne noted, taking down two with three shots. “They’d be a lot more dangerous if they had better optics.”

“Noted,” Mal said. “You wanna go tell them that?”

“Nope,” Jayne replied, holding Vera up above his shoulder. “Looks like the smoke doesn’t bother ‘em too much, though.” He pulled the trigger, and the man on the roof went down.

“Oh, nice shot!” yelled the man in the suit. He reached down and hoisted his brother into a fireman’s carry.

Jayne grinned. “It was, wasn’t it?”

The crowd chanted “Beaumonde, belle, belle!” in rough unison. Occasional licks of flame rose as the crowd found things dry enough to burn.

Mal slapped the intercom button. “River, get ready to head up. We’ll radio Inara as soon as we’re out of atmosphere.” Glancing down, he called. “Sorry, but I don’t think we can help you with your cargo.”

The man in the suit shook his head. “No, and I have more important matters to attend to at the moment, like getting to the nearest medibank before he wakes up and starts screaming. These burns are quite painful.” He glanced up at the crew at the top of the ramp. “Good luck, Captain. You’ll likely need it.”

More smoke boiled from the street as Buckaroo and Kaylee emerged from the crowd. “Did the drones break off?” Kaylee shouted over the noise.

“For the moment, looks like.” Zoe scanned the horizon. “Two broke formation and headed North. Probably lost their signal from the controller.”

“Get the mule secured,” Mal ordered. Peering at the pile of scrap, he asked, “How much of this is for the ship?”

“About nine-tenths of it,” Kaylee answered. “We did pick up a few things to fix Dr. Banzai’s Jet Car. Don’t worry,” she continued as Mal scowled, “I paid for that out of my share of the last job.”

“Long as I ain’t paying for it,” Mal grudgingly accepted. He waited for Jayne to lock down the mule and started closing the ramp up.

“Quite a riot,” River observed over the intercom. “Two minutes to liftoff.”

“It’ll be fun if that starts happening everywhere we go,” Jayne chuckled.

“I hope not,” Zoe said. “It’s bad for business.”

River’s voice crackled again. “Message from Inara, captain. She will rendezvous with us 20000 meters above our current position. She has an assignment on Aberdeen.”

“That ain’t far at all,” Jayne observed.

“Fine with me,” Mal answered. “Take us up when you’re ready.” The engines thrummed in response.

\---

The sounds of happy chatter and the bargain-basement magnetic welder at work floated up from the engine room as Simon climbed down. Kaylee was only visible from the waist up, as often happened when she was deep in the guts of _Serenity_. Dr. Banzai was bent nearly double over a plasma conduit, holding a severely jury-rigged object in place as Kaylee connected it to several other bits of engine whose names Simon had been told, but never remembered.

“Am I interrupting?” Simon asked, his eyes darting from Dr. Banzai to Kaylee and back.

“Technically, yes, but we’re kind of near a stopping point,” Dr. Banzai explained. “If you’ll hold on just a couple more minutes, we’ll be good to go.”

“And this thing will need a recharge soon, too,” Kaylee chirped, thumping the magnetic welder’s power pack with her elbow. As if in agreement, its display blinked yellow.

Simon nodded and had a seat on the tertiary fuel gage. Kaylee and Dr. Banzai were working together even better than they had on the limpet drone, although, given that they were in a gravity field now, perhaps that was only to be expected. They seemed to be communicating in a sort of engineer’s shorthand, rarely finishing a sentence and rarely needing to.

Kaylee pushed a pair of connectors together and snapped a housing around them. The object Dr. Banzai had been holding blinked, then began sending bright yellow pulses from the corners of a triangular web of tubing towards the center. Neither engineer cheered, exactly, but they both had looks of intense satisfaction on their faces as they climbed out of the access hatch and back into the engine room proper, and Kaylee did a few steps of a happy little dance.

Simon nodded. “Did the patient survive, or was that more like a successful delivery?”

Kaylee thought about that. Dr. Banzai politely waited a few minutes, then answered, “Implanting a pacemaker that increases the maximum oxygen use of the patient might be a better analogy.”

“So, an improvement?” Simon had images of cyborgs dancing in his head, although he wasn’t quite sure that was the right analogy either.

“I hope so!” Kaylee patted the conduit Dr. Banzai had been leaning over. “Did you need us for something?”

Simon exhaled heavily. “The truth is,” he said, his hands working nervously, “I was wondering whether you two were - enjoying the engines together.”

Dr. Banzai blinked. “Is that a euphemism?”

“More a reference to my little kinks,” Kaylee said, her mouth quirked. She slid her arms around Simon’s shoulders. “Hon, if I were chasing new shiny things, I surely would be chasing Dr. Banzai. He’s cute. But I like my pretty shiny right here.” She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the nose. “Besides,” she added with a laugh, “technically, he’s way too old for me.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “A man who can catch up on over half a millennium’s worth of technological developments in two days’ time and save a girl from tumbling through the black is hardly too old for anyone,” he said dryly.

Dr. Banzai smiled softly, almost shyly. “While I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he admitted, “I’m taken, myself.”

Kaylee laughed in delight. “So that’s why you’re such a gentleman!” she chuckled. “What’s the lucky lady’s name?”

“It was Peggy, once,” Buckaroo mused. “Then she died. Then I got a second chance named Penny, although really she’s her own person, even if her fate hasn’t quite worked that out yet.”

Simon looked at him quizzically, and commented, “I don’t think I have, either.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Banzai said with a smile. “I’m not trying to steal your pretty little mechanical genius away from you.”

Kaylee slid an arm around Simon’s waist and guided him towards the ladder. “We might as well - Dr. Banzai, would you plug that in? Thanks - go up to the galley for a little bit while that’s charging back up. And we can tell you all about the Standing-wave Overthruster we’re installing; I think the cap’n will really like it.”

\---

“Recovered from your close call?” Bucakroo asked as he sat down on the stairs.

“Yep.” Zoe narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted, deep down, to trust him, but that she felt that made her suspicious in its own right. Generally speaking, she just wasn’t into trust as a lifestyle choice.

“Well, good.” If Buckaroo picked up on her concern, he was ignoring it. “Seems like you guys are popular in some crowds, at least.”

“The captain is,” she said. “Made a tough call. Think it was the right one.”

Buckaroo added, “And his loyal crew, too.” He took a moment to look across the cargo bay were Kaylee was pushing a creeper cart back and forth with her toes, checking the under-fuselage of the Jet Car. “I heard you lost someone very important because your captain made that call.”

Zoe stared at him, her eyes hard. Finally, she nodded once. “He was worth the whole ‘verse. And he made that call for himself, not the captain.”

Buckaroo rubbed his fingertips across his mouth. “And you need to protect what he left for you.”

“You talkin’ around something, you better spit it out,” she said, her voice still flat. Only her eyes betrayed anything deeper, and whether it was cold grief or cool anger was impossible to tell.

“Right.” Buckaroo edged closer and dropped his voice. “Tell your doctor you’re pregnant. You should have someone giving you proper prenatal care.”

Zoe said nothing. As the sounds of Kaylee tightening something with a wrench drifted across the cargo bay floor, Zoe raised one eyebrow, slowly and deliberately.

Finally, when she spoke, it was low and slow. “You figure?” she asked.

“You’re buckling your holster one notch out from where it normally rides,” Buckaroo pointed out. “I can tell by the wear pattern on the notch-holes. That’s not the only sign, but -”

“Hard to tell morning sickness from just plain mourning,” she mused.

Buckaroo blinked. “Did you not know?”

“Not for sure,” she admitted. “I was suspecting, though.”

“Then I apologize for intruding,” Buckaroo said as he pushed himself to his feet. “But I still think you should let your doctor know. You’re going to start showing very soon.”

She waited until his cowboy boots had echoed across the grate and he was deep in consultation with Kaylee. “Might be right about that,” she murmured to herself.

\---

Mal looked sidelong at Buckaroo. “Well,” he admitted, “I can’t say I regret picking you up as a stowaway after all.”

Buckaroo dusted off his helmet. “Thank you, Captain,” he said with a small smile. “That does mean a lot. And I appreciate all the help you gave me getting the Jet Car back in working order.”

“Mostly I just lent you my mechanic,” Mal pointed out.

“Weren’t nothing,” Kaylee bubbled. “I was glad to work on it - gave me a few ideas for fixing things up around here.”

The cargo hatch was open, with the warm, slightly sticky breezes of Aberdeen blowing a mixture of pollen and dust back into the hold. River had found a fairly flat mesa and set the ship down at the edge, but the river valley below them seemed to be blooming all at once, leaving a yellow coating over the bare rock.

Dr. Banzai strapped the helmet on and climbed into the Jet Car. “It looks like I’m ready for dimensional transition,” he noted aloud as he checked his readings. “You take care. All of you.”

The engines on the vehicle began to whine. Jayne and Mal each took a few steps back; Zoe was in less of a hurry, but after a small nod to the driver, she gave the Jet Car room as well. Kaylee did one hurried circuit around it, checking for fuel leaks or misbehaving turbines, but she found nothing that worried her. With a thumbs-up, she gave Buckaroo the go-ahead.

The Jet Car started forward with a whine, and was out of the cargo bay and down the ramp before they’d registered its acceleration. A trio of bright blue beams from the vehicle flickered through the clouds of rising dust, slowly converging on a point on the mesa along its path; the car disappeared soundlessly in a flare of the same blue, leaving unwinding vortices of pollen and sand in its wake.

Mal tried not to look astonished and mostly succeeded. “Well,” he declared, “that’s that. And as soon as Inara’s back from her little business trip, I think we can get going.”

“Where to?” Zoe asked.

Mal rubbed his chin. “That’s a good question. I’ll think about it as we head out.”

“Trouble on the line,” River’s voice announced from the intercom. “Patching her through.”

“Mal?” Inara cried through the speaker. “We have a very large issue.”

Zoe and Jayne locked eyes and started up the stairs. Mal leaned over the control panel as the hatch clanged shut. “Hit me,” he groaned.

“My contact here appears to have disappeared between the time he made the request to the Companion’s Guild and our arrival,” Inara said breathlessly. “No one knows where he’s gone, or even when he left, but it’s obvious that he left in a great hurry.”

Mal scowled. “Get back to the ship,” he ordered.

“Already on my way,” she replied. “I think we may have been set up - and if this is someone who can interfere with the Guild’s system, this is much bigger than we think. Inara out.”

Mal took a moment to gesture obscenely at the empty containers in the cargo bay before pounding up to the bridge. He passed Zoe and Jayne checking their ammunition, and silently noted that he probably ought to invest in a couple of grenades.

River glanced up as he entered the bridge. “I’m taking us in her direction,” she noted, steering with her toes. “Better she be here than there.”

“I got no problem with that,” Mal said, dropping into the co-pilot’s seat. “You see anything interesting out there?”

River pointed wordlessly at a screen behind him. On it, out of focus, was the unmistakable silhouette of one of the horseshoe drones.

“ _Go se_.” Mal peered at the screen, willing the image to go away. No luck.

“More coming down,” River noted, tapping a 3-D display. “We’re almost at Inara’s location.”

“Are we going to be able to get out from under?” Mal asked.

A piercing whistle emanated from the communications station. Mal slapped a button, and was rewarded with, “This is Commander Adams of the Alliance cruiser _Morton_. We know your location, Captain Reynolds. Stand down and land at the coordinates to follow, and we will refrain from blowing your little ship from the sky.”

River winked one eye slowly. “He’s lying, Captain,” she informed Mal.

“I figured.” Mal watched a silver streak enter the display from roughly planetary West. “Is that her, or them?”

“It’s her. Rendezvous in fifteen,” River announced. She traced a fingernail across the bottom of the display. “They won’t bring the cruiser into atmosphere,” she declared. “As long as we’re down, all they can do is send in the drones.”

“True,” Mal agreed, “but we can’t stay down forever, and if we land they’ve got shuttles. And theirs have weapons.”

“Right. The corridor for our escape is narrow and untested.” River pointed into the display at an angle. Sure enough, there was an open path through the drone cloud.

Mal hailed Inara’s shuttle. “You’re going to have to make a running jump for us,” he explained. “If we slow down, we’ll have a dozen remoras.”

“Not an issue, Captain,” she replied, and indeed, the _thunk_ of the shuttlecraft docking followed shortly. He waited until the indicators for the umbilicus all blinked green, then turned to River and nodded.

River shifted her feet to the side panels and took the wheel in hand. Serenity’s engines warbled as River shifted their speed and direction twice in succession, then hauled her around and dove flat-out for a particular patch of sky.

“Captain Reynolds?” the comm panel protested. “That’s highly unwise. We will open fire on your vehicle if we need to, but why risk lives unnecessarily?”

“Might’ve asked you the same question,” Mal grunted as he muted the speaker.

River tapped an intercom button beside her. “Engine room?” she inquired. “I’m going to need the special sauce as soon as we come to a boil.”

“On it,” Kaylee’s voice came back. “Give me a countdown when you need it. She’s already sined and seeled.”

Mal glanced aside at River. “What have you got going on?”

“An engine boost,” River grunted, paying attention to the rapidly darkening sky in front of her. “More speed, more oomph, less oom-pah-pah.”

“Then let’s go faster,” Mal agreed.

River waited until they were fully in the black; the cruiser appeared, off to their left and closing, but not quickly.

“Everyone hold on tight,” River announced. “Fasten your seatbelts. There may be smoking. Engineering, deliver me!”

\---

“In three, two, one . . .” Kaylee flipped a final toggle switch on the Overthruster and flung herself to the floor. “Boost it!” she cried.

\---

It wasn’t so much that the ship melted, Mal realized, as that all the light reflected off of everything just sort of collected into a corner of the room for a while, then splashed back all over everything. River was definitely the wrong color, and she lost her shape completely, although she managed to stay in one piece. He was pretty sure his fingers were still attached, but they looked like they were scattered around and rapidly shifting from green to blue in color. The stars outside had changed from points to lines and were weaving themselves into a ridiculous pattern, something in a complex plaid.

“River? Kaylee?” Simon’s voice drifted from the intercom and resolved into puffs of lavender smoke. “Did you break space-time?”

“Only a little bit,” River whined. Her voice turned into a sheen of magenta sparkles.

“Not so much broke as bent,” Kaylee admitted, in showers of yellow sparks. “A lot.”

“Take us out on my mark,” River commanded, and the sparkles turned ruby red. “Five, four, three, two, one, _back!_ ”

Something deep in the engines hiccuped, and suddenly all the light was back where it was supposed to be. It even eased back into the correct color as the ship stopped accelerating, coasting through the black.

Mal looked at the navigation screens to gauge their position. Then he looked at them again. On the third look, he scratched his head. “Huh.”

Zoe and Simon appeared at the door. “Anyone care to explain what happened?” Simon asked.

“That thing you saw me and Dr. Banzai installing,” Kaylee said from the intercom, “was a variation on his Oscillation Overthruster. Our physical constants are close to his, but not the same. It shifted us into a parallel dimension. He thought it might do the same for us as it does for the Jet Car in his home parallel world, but on a different scale - the cruiser could shoot at us all it wanted, and the drones could dive for us, but we’d effectively be insubstantial.”

Mal nodded. “That’s not what it looked like happened to me.”

“It did, a little,” Kaylee protested.

River held up one finger. “We did transition into a space just beside our own,” she corrected. “However, it appears that there is a significant spatial contraction factor.”

Simon’s eyebrows went up. “So, traveling a short distance there translates into a longer distance in this dimension?”

“Substantially so,” River agreed.

Zoe scowled. “What does that mean?” she demanded.

Mal dialed out the view on the navigation computer. “It means,” he said reverently, “that the combination of the Overthruster and the one person in the ‘Verse who can think fast enough to react in hyperspace gives Serenity an FTL drive.”

“Not the only one,” River disagreed, glancing at Zoe’s midsection. “At least, I won’t be for long.”

Simon’s jaw had dropped open. “We have a working hyperdrive?” he asked, bewildered.

Mal pointed at the navigation display. “We’re well outside the system,” he said. Sure enough, their dot was almost twice the Blue Sun’s orbit away from the center of the known ‘Verse.

River beamed as her captain. “No one can catch us now,” she assured him. Her lips pursed for a moment, and she added, “Although it is a heavy drinker.”

“She means it gulps fuel,” Kaylee translated. “Which, yeah, it does.”

“And you’d need a precog in the chair, or she’d be flying blind,” Simon realized.

“Which we happen to have,” Mal finished. He looked out at the stars, smiling just a bit. “As long as we can keep her fueled up, we can outrun anyone and anything.”

“And go anywhere,” Zoe said, her voice tinged with awe.

Mal looked out. “So where to next?” he asked.

River waved at the field of unknown worlds ahead of them. “The stars our destination,” she crooned, and set a course beyond the reach of any power they knew.


End file.
